i'm not following this. how are you "selecting guide" while a channel is playing
Green Button on remote is programmed to Guide in Remote Shortcuts.
Can you replicate the issue if you use the normal back button to leave the player?
Not sure. I've never done it that way. I will test it.
First go it seems not. I have just been in and out of Guide many times using back button from player without the crash.
Using the remote shortcut to go into Guide instead of back and it crashed at the second attempt.
EDIT.
This seems to be very consistent. I cannot get the Guide to crash if I use the back button from Live TV. But can guarantee it will crash within a couple of in/outs of the Guide using the remote shortcut.
I think you have pinpointed the issue.
Okay, that explains why we haven't seen it ourselves.
The crash itself is happening deep inside the Android SDK. I found several similar reports on the internet dating back 5 years, with no clear solution. Unfortunately this is a pretty typical experience developing for Android TV.
That said, we can try a few things and hope for the best. See if the latest beta (v2024.06.07.1808) makes any difference.
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Just tried it and exactly the same unfortunately.
Does that mean you guys don't use the remote shortcut buttons? I find them really useful and use them all the time to navigate around the system.
Also what if the last screen you had been in wasn't Guide? If you'd been looking at say the Videos/TV Shows/Schedule etc page before then going back to Live TV, the back up button would take you back to that screen not the guide so you cant reliably use backup to get into the Guide. Not relevant to sorting the bug, but I'm amazed that I appear to be in the minority in making use of them.
Sadly no change.
EDIT. I have done some more testing and found that sending the API command /api/navigate/Guide gives the same effect as using the remote shortcut.
So that produces the freeze/crash repeatably if that makes testing easier for you without going to the trouble of setting up a programmable remote like I have.
For me, the following actions produces the crash every time.
Watch Live TV
send /api/navigate/Guide to the client IP
Navigate to another channel and select it with the remote
send /api/navigate/Guide to the client IP
Guide displays but navigation is frozen then after a couple of seconds exits to OS.
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I have a suspicion this is related to the older version of Android OS on the Shield. Unfortunately I am traveling without access to my nvidia devices for a few weeks.
Can you give v2024.06.12.1009 a try? (it might take a bit to be released), this is a possible though not guaranteed fix for this scenario. On my device (an nVidia Shield 2019) with this fix I was able to use the Remote Shortcuts feature repeatedly with no issue
I like to see if I can duplicate the various client failures with Android/FireTV, so I haven't been able to force the guide lockup failure on any of my testing. Since I couldn't duplicate the failure on even prior releases, my testing doesn't help to prove the newest beta will work for you.
Tested on my Sony Google TV with AndroidTV version 10 API/29, because it has a remote with the shortcut buttons using the prior beta releases and the newest beta.
Tested on my Shield with AndroidTV version 11 API/30 with the current released and newest beta versions, using the curl commands to emulate the button shortcuts since I don't have Sofabaton or whatever remote it be used.
Also, tested on my Firestick MAX with FireTV version 11 API/30 using the curl command shortcuts on the newest beta version.
Sadly no change for me. I'm using a mix of Shield 2015 and 2017. I've just tested on one of my 2015s and it still crashes to OS on Guide/ Select new Channel/ Guide using remote shortcut for Guide.
I will update and test it on one of my 2017s and report back.
Interesting. On my 2017s it is a definite improvement. In fact, initially I thought it was a fix. I was able to go in and out of the guide (using remote shortcut) several times without the crash to OS. But after many attempts it did still sadly crash out.
On my 2015 it still crashes out on the first in/out/in of the Guide.
So whatever you are changing is definitely making an improvement for the 2017s but not the 2015s.
Update - Further testing seems to give quicker crashes on the 2017s also. It's like the update of the app version gives a temporary fix on it's own, but then with continual use it's gets worse. I've tried rebooting the Shields after update to clear down any memory use etc, but it doesn't improve things much, if at all.
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Ani. I think I might have made an important discovery on this issue.
For a while (since I switched to SATIP for my FTA Channels) I have been using Software decoding rather than Hardware Decoding on my clients as I was getting some pixelation using hardware.
I noticed that I was now getting some pixelation even using Software decoding, so temporarily switched back to Hardware to try it again.
But as a side effect of this I noticed the Guide wasn't crashing when using Hardware Decoding.
I will do some more testing but it does seem to be related, does that seem feasible and/or provide a clue to the issue?
EDIT This seems to be repeatable. Put it into Software decoding and the Guide will crash after a few attempts, Put it into Hardware decoding and I haven't been able to get it to crash at all so far.
So, ideally I would just leave it in Hardware decoding but that gives a lot of pixelation on channel change but also badly when skipping forward or backward in live pause or a recording.
That is absolutely feasible and we see a ton of crashes in native code related to video decoding (it is actually one of the few remaining crash issues in the Beta app these days). Thanks for the clues on helping us track down issues like this!
OFF topic but there is an outstanding request for Android, Google TV devices for Previous Channel
by double press on the OK / Select button.
Can you give an update on that, maybe add it to your list??
Thanks
Welcome aboard.
...
Maddox: Dec.19.2023
We'll look into adding double click as a function for previous channel for those Android TV remotes without a play/pause button.
Update: I've been trying as much as I can to go in and out of the Guide over the last 24 hours and haven't managed to crash it once with video decoding set to hardware on any of my 2015 or 2017 Shields 
Has anything changed in the video decoding side in recent updates? I ask because I don't seem to be having anything like the amount of pixelation issues with it set to hardware that I used to and which prompted me to try software in the first place. Any that I do get seems to only be on certain channels and when skipping forward or backwards or changing channels. When just playing normally I get none.
Video decoding is frequently changing to support new codecs / formats, improve performance, etc etc. Glad we've finally gotten to the bottom of this!
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